Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines

Authors submitting manuscripts to HIGIENE: Environmental Health Journal are required to follow these guidelines and use the official HIGIENE Article Template. Manuscripts that do not comply with the journal's scope, formatting requirements, ethical standards, or submission requirements may be returned to the authors before peer review.

1. Article Types

HIGIENE accepts the following manuscript types:

Original Research
Reports original empirical research relevant to environmental health. Recommended length: 3,000–6,000 words, abstract maximum 200 words, and up to 40 references.

Review Article
Includes systematic reviews, scoping reviews, meta-analyses, and critical narrative reviews. Recommended length: 4,000–7,000 words, abstract maximum 200 words, and up to 80 references.

Case Report / Case Series
Reports environmentally or occupationally relevant cases with important scientific or practical value. Recommended length: 2,000–3,500 words, abstract maximum 200 words, and up to 30 references.

Editorial
Provides scholarly analysis or perspectives on strategic environmental health issues. Recommended length: 1,000–2,000 words, unstructured abstract up to 150 words, and up to 20 references. Editorials are generally invited by the editors.

Word limits exclude the title page, abstract, tables, figures, captions, declarations, and references. Editors may allow reasonable flexibility where scientifically justified.

2. General Requirements

Manuscripts must:

• be original, unpublished, and not under consideration by another journal;

• fall within the focus and scope of HIGIENE;

• be written in clear and consistent English or Indonesian;

• use the official HIGIENE Microsoft Word template;

• be submitted in .docx format;

• use standard scientific terminology, nomenclature, and SI units; and

• accurately acknowledge all data, sources, tables, figures, and third-party materials.

All authors must approve the submitted version and agree to the order of authorship.

3. Manuscript Format

The manuscript should be prepared on A4 paper with 2.5 cm margins, using Calibri 10 pt and 1.25 line spacing for the main text.

Authors should use the styles provided in the HIGIENE Article Template rather than applying manual formatting.

All instructional text, placeholders, comments, and tracked changes must be removed before submission.

4. Title Page and Author Information

The title should be concise, specific, and informative, with a maximum of 15 words. Avoid unnecessary abbreviations, formulas, trade names, and general phrases.

A running title of no more than 50 characters including spaces should also be provided.

Author names should be written in full without academic degrees. Each affiliation should include the department or study program, faculty or institution, university or organization, city, and country.

Authors should provide an ORCID iD where available. The corresponding author must provide an active email address and appropriate contact information.

5. Abstract and Keywords

Original Research and Review Articles must include abstracts in English and Indonesian, each with a maximum of 200 words.

The abstract should generally include:

Background – Objective – Methods – Results – Conclusion

The abstract should not contain references, tables, figures, unsupported claims, or uncommon abbreviations.

Provide 3–5 keywords in each language. Authors are encouraged to use standardized indexing terms such as Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) where appropriate.

Research Highlights consisting of 3–5 concise points may be included as an optional element.

6. Structure of Original Research Articles

Original Research manuscripts should generally follow the following structure:

Introduction

Present the environmental health problem, relevant evidence, knowledge gap, scientific rationale, and study objective or hypothesis.

Materials and Methods

Provide sufficient information to allow evaluation and replication of the study, including study design, setting and period, population or samples, eligibility criteria, sampling procedures, sample-size calculation where applicable, variables, instruments, laboratory methods, quality assurance and quality control, statistical analysis, and ethical considerations.

Results

Present findings logically in relation to the study objectives. Report relevant descriptive results, effect estimates, confidence intervals, and additional analyses where appropriate.

Discussion

Interpret the main findings, compare them with previous evidence, discuss plausible mechanisms, environmental or public health implications, strengths, limitations, potential bias, and generalizability. Causal claims should not be made from non-causal study designs.

Conclusion

Provide a concise conclusion directly supported by the findings. Recommendations should be specific and evidence-based.

7. Reporting Standards

Authors should follow internationally recognized reporting guidelines appropriate to the study design, including where applicable:

• STROBE for observational studies;

• CONSORT for randomized controlled trials;

• PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses;

• PRISMA-ScR for scoping reviews;

• STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies;

• TRIPOD for prediction models;

• COREQ or SRQR for qualitative research;

• CARE for case reports;

• ARRIVE 2.0 for animal studies; and

• other relevant EQUATOR Network guidelines.

Authors may be asked to submit a completed reporting checklist.

For environmental health, toxicology, exposure assessment, biomonitoring, and health risk assessment studies, methodological information should include relevant sampling procedures, analytical quality assurance and quality control, exposure parameters, toxicity values, assumptions, uncertainty, and sensitivity analyses where applicable.

8. Tables and Figures

The combined number of tables and figures should normally not exceed six.

Tables must be created using the Microsoft Word table function and should not use unnecessary vertical lines.

Table titles should appear above the table, while figure captions should appear below the figure.

Figures should have sufficient publication quality, with photographs or other halftone images generally prepared at a minimum effective resolution of 300 dpi.

All tables and figures must be cited in the text in numerical order and should not unnecessarily duplicate information presented elsewhere.

9. References

HIGIENE uses the numbered Vancouver reference style.

References should be cited in numerical order according to their first appearance in the text, using square brackets, for example:

[1], [2,3], or [4–7].

Authors are strongly encouraged to use reference-management software such as Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote.

References should prioritize original, current, relevant, and traceable scientific sources. DOI information should be provided in the format:

https://doi.org/...

where available.

10. Research Ethics and Publication Integrity

Research involving human participants must obtain approval from an appropriate Research Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board and comply with applicable ethical principles. The manuscript should report the committee name, institution, approval number, and informed-consent procedure where relevant.

Animal research must comply with applicable institutional and ethical requirements.

Plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate image or data manipulation, duplicate publication, and unjustified fragmentation of research findings are not permitted.

Submitted manuscripts may undergo similarity screening and editorial integrity assessment.

Case reports, photographs, or other information that may identify individuals require appropriate consent for publication.

11. Authorship and Contributor Roles

All listed authors must have made substantial scholarly contributions, participated in drafting or critically revising the manuscript, approved the final version, and agreed to be accountable for the integrity of the work.

HIGIENE requires author contributions to be reported using the CRediT Contributor Role Taxonomy where applicable.

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged appropriately.

12. Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies

Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors.

Authors must disclose substantive use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation, language editing, analysis, programming, or related activities.

The disclosure should identify the tool, its purpose, and the part of the work in which it was used.

Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, confidentiality, citations, scientific integrity, and copyright compliance of all submitted content.

AI must not be used to fabricate, falsify, manipulate, or misleadingly alter scientific data or images.

13. Required Declarations

A Declarations section should be included after the Conclusion and should address, where applicable:

• Ethics approval and consent to participate;

• Consent for publication;

• Funding;

• Competing interests;

• Author contributions using CRediT;

• Data availability;

• Acknowledgments; and

• Generative AI statement.

If a declaration does not apply, authors should provide an appropriate statement such as “Not applicable” rather than deleting the heading.

14. Files for Submission

Authors should prepare the following files as applicable:

1. Main manuscript (.docx) prepared using the official HIGIENE template;

2. Cover letter;

3. Ethics approval or research permit documentation when required;

4. Relevant reporting checklist;

5. Supplementary materials where applicable; and

6. High-resolution figure files when requested.

The cover letter should confirm manuscript originality, approval by all authors, relevance to HIGIENE, ethical approval where applicable, competing interests, funding, use of AI, and preprint status where relevant.

15. Submission and Editorial Process

Manuscripts must be submitted through the HIGIENE Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform.

Authors must accurately complete all submission metadata, including article title, abstract, keywords, author names and order, affiliations, email addresses, and ORCID identifiers where available.

Submitted manuscripts undergo:

Initial editorial screening → Peer review → Editorial decision → Revision where required → Copyediting and production → Publication

Editorial decisions may include:

Accept – Minor Revision – Major Revision – Reject

Authors submitting revised manuscripts should provide a point-by-point response to reviewer and editor comments.

16. Publication Fees

At the time these guidelines were issued, HIGIENE does not charge submission fees or article processing charges (APCs).

Authors should refer to the latest information published on the journal website for any subsequent changes to this policy.

17. Before Submission

Before submitting, authors should ensure that:

• the manuscript follows the HIGIENE template and Author Guidelines;

• ethical requirements have been addressed;

• all authors and affiliations are correct;

• references have been checked;

• required declarations are complete;

• all authors have approved the final version; and

• all required submission files are ready.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to return manuscripts that do not comply with these requirements before peer review.